


Father's Day (The Never Been Kissed Remix)

by Aviss



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:49:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviss/pseuds/Aviss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy growing up as The Archive, though having the right family can help. Even if they are the most dysfunctional family ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father's Day (The Never Been Kissed Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Family in Five Acts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8296) by [Gehayi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/pseuds/Gehayi). 



 

"It's time. Tomorrow, eight o'clock, the usual place."

"I'll be there. Have you contacted the wizard?"

"Not yet. He's in the depths of Winter. Haven't seen or heard from him in a while."

"I'll get a message through to him; see if he can get away from his duties to the Sidhe for a day."

"Remember, Marcone, leave no written evidence of this. She cannot know."

" _I know_. It's not the first time I do this."

"Fine. I'll see you both tomorrow."

…

There were a lot of things about being The Archive Ivy had had to get used to. The knowledge of every single thing ever written was one of them, though not the hardest. Not having a childhood to speak of came really high on the list as well, but she had never complained.

 _She was The Archive_ ; she had been born The Archive and would die The Archive, nothing more and nothing less in the eyes of most people who would ever get to know her. The White Council, the Vampire Courts, the Sidhe and the rest of the Accords signatories didn't see anything except for the vessel of the accumulated knowledge of the world, and she had grown to accept this fact. 

But she was also Ivy, the girl no one had ever given a present before The Hellhound tossed some crayons at her after their first meeting. The girl who didn't even had a name before Harry Dresden thought to give her one. The girl nobody had ever thought to protect _just because she was a girl_ before Marcone almost gave his life for her.

They were the first people to see her as more than The Archive, and she loved them for that. They were her fathers, as diametrically different from each other as three people could be, and they had each taught her something valuable: to be a bit more like them, to be a bit more human with each passing day.

They were, the three of them, her fathers. And she loved them beyond all reason.

That didn't mean she didn't want to kill them. And she probably could, because she was The Archive, and she knew more ways to kill a person--Freeholding Lord, Winter Knight or Hellhound status notwithstanding--than any other being on the planet.

There they were, sitting very conspicuously at the ice cream parlour were she was supposed to be enjoying her first date, and attracting the incredulous looks of most of the people in the shopping mall. Even the vanilla mortals were staring at them and giving their table a wide berth; there was no way a practitioner, even if Jordan was just an apprentice wizard, didn't know who they were.

"Are they--" Jordan asked, or tried to. He looked at them, frozen on the sport, swallowed loudly, and started again. " _Is that Harry Dresden_?"

Ivy almost sighed at the awe and pure terror in his voice. "Yes." It was difficult to mistake that lanky figure for anyone else; with or without that duster he used to wear. Winter's clothes looked good on him, though it didn't help him blend with the rest of the people.

Harry, as always, stuck out like a sore thumb.

" _And Gentelman Johnny Marcone_?" Jordan's voice dropped to an almost whisper.

"Yes," Ivy said, noticing how sweaty Jordan's hand had become in the last minute. Marcone tended to have that effect on people, even when he was just sitting down in his ten thousand dollar suit calmly eating ice cream.

"And that--" Jordan did a double take at the last one, his grip on Ivy's hand easing a bit when he didn't recognize him. "Who--?"

"That's Kincaid, my bodyguard," Ivy admitted, resigned. She knew what was coming. Kincaid looked almost normal next to the other two, if one didn't take into account his smile. She had seen sharks smiling with less teeth at the Aquarium that time they took her there.

The grip tightened painfully around Ivy's hand before Jordan let go of her. " _The Hellhound_?"

"Yes."

"Sorry Ivy, I think I have to go."

Jordan turned around and left the place as if all the hounds of hell were at his heels, which all things considered, wasn't that exaggerated a reaction. She probably shouldn't expect him to call again.

Fathers or not, Ivy was going to kill them.

…

"I'm going to have to find a vanilla mortal if I ever want to date," Ivy said dropping on the empty chair on their usual table at Original Rainbow Cones, glaring at the three men already there.

She signalled to the waitress for her favourite ice cream, looking at her three companions in turn. They didn't even have the decency to look ashamed. Kincaid had a big spoon full of strawberry ice cream in his hand and was grinning smugly at her, Harry was demolishing the biggest sundae she had ever seen, a naughty glint in his eyes that had been missing since he became the Winter Knight, and Marcone was taking dainty bites of his ice cream sandwich, looking as innocent as a newborn baby, which was just disturbing in his case.

And she couldn't stay mad at them. She loved them because they treated her like a father would treat his teenaged daughter, not as if she was the all knowing and powerful Archive. And that little display, that was how a father would treat his daughter.

She laughed when her ice cream was deposited in front of her. "You know that for my descendants to inherit the knowledge of The Archive, first I have to have descendants. And to have descendants, I have to date."

"When you're older," said Marcone, who was always the more reasonable of the three.

"When you're thirty," said Dresden, who would always see her as the little girl he had named.

"When Summer freezes over," said Kincaid, who would always be the first and most ardent protector.

Ivy laughed and ate her ice cream.

She wouldn't kill them after all. It felt good being part of a family.

..


End file.
